Pickin' Wildflowers
by Amela333
Summary: Entry for vampires assistant's Larten and Arra Mushy and Soppy Contest.


**Disclaimer: **Go read someone else's disclaimer, I'm too lazy to write one. Done with someone else's? Okay, cool, same goes here.

**Author's note: **Entry for vampires assistant's 'Larten and Arra Mushy and Soppy Contest'. Now, before you begin, let me say that mushy is not my forte, so this isn't the greatest in terms of sappiness. But I thought this idea was entertaining and cute, and it was lots of fun to write, and so, lo and behold, here you go :)

Also, after this, probably not many updates for a while as I just started this intensive driver's ed course today and I've got a bunch of stuff over the next couple weeks, so it might be a bit before anything is updated.

Oh, and I don't think this really warrants a warning, but I guess you could say it's 'T' for suggestive themes XD

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"Let's ditch Gavner."

The barely-whispered sentence was what Larten had been longing to hear all night. Arra grinned at him slyly before returning her head nonchalantly to his shoulder and giving a dramatic sigh.

Gavner was oblivious to the two new mates, his permanently stuffy nose buried in a map of the country where they were attempting to find a group of vampires that had sent for back-up on a mission. This hadn't been exactly what Larten and Arra had planned for their first month as mates, and neither were thrilled to be trekking around the globe. Gavner, on the other hand, seemed perfectly thrilled to be a third wheel to the happy couple.

Larten cleared his throat loudly for Gavner to hear. "Perhaps we should consider turning in for the day," he announced. "It has been a long night."

Gavner looked up and stretched. "If you're tired, go ahead," he said. "I'd rather figure out our traveling plans before I go to bed. Arra, wanna help me?"

"Erm," she looked around then yawned a little too obviously, "I think I'd better get some sleep too. All this flitting's made me tired."

"All right," Gavner shrugged, turning back to his map. "Sleep well."

Larten and Arra exchanged annoyed glances. "What now?" Arra mouthed, and Larten scratched his chin thoughtfully. He glanced outside and found that it was nearly daylight; he could see the glow of the rising sun from the mouth of the cave they had taken shelter in. Looking back at Arra, he raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head. Going outdoors would be cutting it too close, even with the cover of the forest around them. She slipped out from under Larten's arm and walked slowly over to the map, kneeling next to Gavner and pretending to examine the path he was marking. She winked subtly at Larten then turned to Gavner. "Whoa!" she said, placing a hand on the side of his head and turning his face towards her.

"What? What is it? What's wrong?" Gavner said, almost spilling a bottle of ink in fright and reaching up to run his hands over his face to check for an injury, or a mark, or perhaps an additional nose that could have warranted her sudden outburst.

"Larten, come here!" she said urgently, though a small smile, one that only Larten could detect, was playing at the corners of her mouth.

He jumped to his feet and came over, studying the panicking Gavner to see what was wrong. When he could see nothing, he decided it best to just go along with Arra anyway, and said, "Oh my, that is not good."

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Gavner exclaimed. "Out with it!"

"These circles under your eyes," Arra said, her fingertips tracing around the faint dark spots, the ones that she had seen on his face a million times before. "And the whites of your eyes are terribly bloodshot. You might be coming down with something."

"Yes, yes," Larten agreed, forcing himself to hold back a laugh as he realized Arra's plan. "Not good at all. You need rest, Gavner."

But Gavner's face had relaxed, and he was smiling a bit at his friends' concern. "Oh, those," he said, waving them off with his hand. "I always have those. Too many sleepless nights in my past come back to haunt me, I suppose; I've learned to live with them. Don't worry about me, I feel fine. Better than fine; in fact, I could be up all day!" And he turned back to his map to begin plotting.

Larten and Arra exchanged furious glances at his thickheaded-ness. Never in all their years as friends had Larten been so frustrated with Gavner. "Let us take a walk," he told Arra, trying to cool his temper; that was what Seba had taught him to do whenever he was mad.

"I thought you said you were tired," Gavner said lightly, scribbling something out.

Larten opened his mouth to answer but decided that whatever he was going to tell Gavner would be best left unsaid and instead reached out for Arra's hand. She took it and led the way out of the cave. "You realize it's going to be sunny in about twenty minutes," she said as soon as they were outside.

"Yes," he nodded. "And if we hurry, that will give us enough time to find another cave."

"You think there'll be another around here?" she asked skeptically. "I was surprised we found this one." The cave they had planned to spend the night in was in a small mountainside, and the cave was deep. It was hard to imagine that another could fit without the mountain collapsing in on itself. The rest of their surroundings were plain forest, with nothing to take shelter under except the occasional boulder, and that only worked it you tucked into a ball pressed all the way against it, something neither of them planned to do.

"We can hope," Larten said dismally. "Let us hurry, before we sizzle."

They searched around the base of the mountain first, and when that proved unhelpful, they turned to the forest. But, unfortunately, the woods were not especially dense, the ground was flat, and what little undergrowth there was was light and low.

"This is useless," Larten declared after fifteen minutes. The sun was now almost too bright for them, and his pant leg was caught in a thorn bush. Arra was trying to free him without poking the long, pointed spikes into his calf. "This forest is about as useful as Gavner is considerate."

"He's not being inconsiderate intentionally," Arra defended him, plucking the thick, blue flowers off the bush in an attempt to rip out some of the deeper thorns. "Oblivious, maybe, but he's just being Gavner," she grinned. "And that's why we love him."

"If you were in my shoes, you would not say that," Larten grumbled, finally pulling his leg away and ripping out the last thorn as Arra straightened up.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asked, shoving him playfully and raising her eyebrows with a smile.

For a moment she thought he was going to shove her back, but instead he wrapped his arms around her and tickled her sides, making her shriek and collapse against him, laughing and trying only half-heartedly to push him away. He pressed his lips to her neck and whispered, "You're beautiful." She giggled as he kissed her throat.

He sighed as he as he lifted his head to look up at the sky. "I am afraid we'll have to go back," he said as he released his hold two-handed hold of her moving just one arm around her waist.

"Let's just tell - ow!" Arra flinched as Larten's arm moved closer against her back.

He jerked away, startled, and asked, "What is it?"

She lifted his right arm up and ran her fingers over the cuff of his sleeve pulling off a flower with a spiked stem. She held it up to his eyes. "Ah, sorry," he said, taking it from her. "It must have stuck when I..." He suddenly trailed off, his eyes narrowing. He rotated the flower between his fingers.

"What?" Arra asked, standing on tip-toes to try and see what on the flower or short stem had caught his attention.

Larten's face split into a smile. "Help me gather a couple more of these flowers," he told her, "and be careful not to poke yourself." Once his hands were full of them, he asked Arra for her knife. She drew one out of her jacket, frowning curiously as he used it to slice into the center of the flower. "Put out your hand." Placing the flower above her palm, he tapped out a pale yellow pollen, then grinned down at her. "This," he said, holding up another flower, cutting into it, and doing the same, "is a Midnight Rose. Do you know why it is called that?"

Arra took one of the flowers from him and examined it, then she ran a finger through the mound of powder in her hand. "Is it because the flower is such a dark blue?" she asked finally, shrugging.

"No," he said then cocked his head and added, "To be fair, that may have been the initial reason. But the true reason -" he pinched up some of the powder and let it sift through his fingers back into Arra's palm, "- is that this pollen, when used properly, can invoke a very deep, impenetrable sleep for hours." Arra's eyes traveled from the pollen up to Larten's, and her smile grew wider.

"You know how to use it?" she asked, and he nodded. "You won't, you know, hurt him, or anything?"

"I know exactly the amounts to put a vampire to sleep all day," Larten grinned wickedly. "Seba has taught me exactly what is safe. I do not believe that an overdose of it would harm a vampire anyway." He laughed as he reached into his coat for a small phial of blood. Uncorking it, he took a few pinches of the powder and put them in then resealed it and gave it a shake. He extracted one more phial, this one empty. "Pour the rest of the powder in; we can save it for future use," he told her, and she grinned, dumping in the contents of her hand. Once she had brushed the last particles in, he corked it, stuck it back in his pocket, and took her hand.

"Now," he said, "let us get back to the cave before we're rendered incapable by sunburn." The sun had completely risen now, and so they ran back to the shelter and darkness of the cave. Once they reached it, they found that Gavner was still studying the map and had barely moved since they left.

"There you are!" he said, as they sprinted through the opening and into the shadows. "I was beginning to worry; a few more minutes and I would have come after you."

"Yes, well, that was not necessary," Larten said. "We were merely taking a walk and enjoying each other's company." He and Arra sat next to Gavner and Larten yawned casually, wrapping an arm around Arra's waist as he reached for his spiked phial of blood with the other hand. "When was the last time you fed?" he asked Gavner. "You look a little bit pale."

"We already went over this," Gavner waved him off. "Stop worrying about me. Though," he shrugged one shoulder, "it's been a little while. Maybe I'll go out tomorrow night."

"Well, until then, have some of mine to keep your strength up," Larten offered, and Arra had to look away so Gavner wouldn't catch her guiltily-reddening cheeks.

"Thanks," Gavner smiled, reaching out for the phial and downing it in one gulp. Larten couldn't hold back a small chuckle as Gavner wiped his mouth and handed the empty container back. "What are you two grinning about?"

"Nothing," Arra shook her head quickly. They watched him intently - a bit too intently, and he noticed.

"And what are you staring at me for?" he asked, laughing in spite of himself. "You're acting very strange, you kn -." And before he could finish, his head clucked down on the table in front of him and his breaths became deep and slow.

"Good Lord, that was fast," Arra said through her giggles, as Larten gently tapped Gavner on the shoulder to make sure he was fast asleep. "Is he okay?"

"He is perfectly fine," Larten assured her. "Look, he is just sleeping very, very deeply. He could put Rip Van Winkle to shame."

Arra laughed, "Well, if you're sure he's just asleep and will stay that way..."

"I am absolutely positive," he told her, and clapped his hands inches from Gavner's ears to prove his point.

"Now," he pulled her into a kiss, his hands resting on her hips, "come with me." He led her deeper into the cave, so far back that the passed-out Gavner was completely out of sight before he gently lowered her to the ground.

"You," she said, as he pulled her onto his chest, "are one sly vampire."

"That is a good thing, right?" he chuckled, his voice muffled as his lips brushed along her jaw.

"Of course," she whispered, and though it was right in his ear, he didn't hear it; at that moment, a deafening roar split through the cave, causing both of them to jump to their feet in shock, hands instinctively raising. The following several seconds were silent, and Arra asked quietly, "What was that?"

Before Larten could answer, there it was again, a monstrous growl that shook bits of stone and dust of the cavern walls. "Could it be...thunder?" he guessed, not bothering to keep his voice down - any intruder that was going to harm them would surely be much more quiet.

"I doubt it," Arra answered. "But if that -" she paused as the noise sounded again, "doesn't wake Gavner, I don't know what -." She stopped mid-sentence as realization kicked her in the face. As the roar thundered again, Arra and Larten's furious groans matched its intensity, "Gavner!"

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Thanks for reading, hope you liked it. Please, please, please review, they make me grin a mile wide :D


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